as many

who are indulgent to their propensities of | They suffered, with unapproving acquiescence, soparsimony, as others to their voluptuous desires, licitations, which they had in no shape desired, to and that the pecuniary capital grows instead of an unjust and usurping power, whom they had never diminishing; on what ground are we authorized provoked, and whose hostile menaces they did not to say, that a nation, gamboling in an ocean of dread. When the exigencies of the publick sersuperfluity, is undone by want? With what face vice could only be met by their voluntary zeal, can we pretend, that they who have not denied they started forth with an ardour which outstripany one gratification to any one appetite, have a ped the wishes of those who had injured them by right to plead poverty in order to famish their vir- doubting whether it might not be necessary to have tues, and to put their duties on short allowance ? recourse to compulsion. They have, in all things, That they are to take the law from an imperious reposed an enduring, but not an unreflecting, conenemy, and can contribute no longer to the honour fidence. That confidence demands a full return, of their king, to the support of the independ- and fixes a responsibility on the ministers entire ence of their country, to the salvation of that and undivided. The People stands acquitted, if Europe, which, if it falls, must crush them with the war is not carried on in a manner suited to its its gigantick ruins? How can they affect to sweat, objects. If the publick honour is tarnished; if the and stagger, and groan, under their burthens, to publick safety suffers any detriment; the ministers, whom the mines of Newfoundland, richer than not the people, are to answer it, and they alone. those of Mexico and Peru, are now thrown in as a Its armies, its navies, are given to them without make-weight in the scale of their exorbitant opu- stint or restriction. Its treasures are poured out at lence? What excuse can they have to faint, and their feet. Its constancy is ready to second all creep, and cringe, and prostrate themselves, at the their efforts. They are not to fear a responsibility footstool of ambition and crime, who, during a short for acts of manly adventure. The responsibility though violent struggle, which they have never which they are to dread, is, lest they should shew supported with the energy of men, have amassed themselves unequal to the expectation of a brave more to their annual accumulation, than all the people. The more doubtful may be the constituwell-husbanded capital, that enabled their ances- tional and economical questions upon which they tors, by long, and doubtful, and obstinate conflicts, have received so marked a support, the more loudly to defend, and liberate, and vindicate the civilized they are called upon to support this great war, for world? But I do not accuse the people of Eng- the success of which their country is willing to suland. As to the great majority of the nation, they persede considerations of no slight importance. have done whatever in their several ranks, and con- Where I speak of responsibility, I do not mean to ditions, and descriptions, was required of them by exclude that species of it, which the legal powers their relative situations in society; and from those of the country have a right finally to exact from the great mass of mankind cannot depart, without those who abuse a publick trust; but high as this the subversion of all publick order. They look up is, there is a responsibility which attaches on them, to that government, which they obey that they from which the whole legitimate power of this may be protected. They ask to be led and di- kingdom cannot absolve them; there is a responrected by those rulers, whom Providence and the sibility to conscience and to glory; a responsilaws of their country have set over them, and under bility to the existing world, and to that posterity, their guidance to walk in the ways of safety and which men of their eminence cannot avoid for honour. They have again delegated the greatest glory or for shame; a responsibility to a tribunal, trust, which they have to bestow, to those faithful at which, not only ministers, but kings and parliarepresentatives who made their true voice heard ments, but even nations themselves, must one day against the disturbers and destroyers of Europe. answer.

LETTER FROM LORD AUCKLAND

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EDMUND BURKE.

LETTER FROM THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EDMUND BURKE

TO LORD AUCKLAND.

I AM not sure, that the best way of disrussing any subject, except those that concern the abstracted sciences, is not somewhat in the way of dialogue. To this mode, however, there are two objections; the first, that it happens, as in the puppet-show, one man speaks for all the personages. An unnatural uniformity of tone is in a manner unavoidable. The other and more serious objection is, that as the author (if not an absolute sceptick) must have some opinion of his own to enforce, he will be continually tempted to enervate the arguments he puts into the mouth of his adversary, or to place them in a point of view most commodious for their refutation. There is, however, a sort of dialogue not quite so liable to these objections, because it approaches more nearly to truth and nature it is called CONTROVERSY. Here the parties speak for themselves. If the writer, who attacks" another's notions, does not deal fairly with his

66

subject. I therefore had recourse to my Rider's Almanack. There I found indeed something, that characterized the work, and that gave directions concerning the sudden political and natural variations, and for eschewing the maladies, that are most prevalent in that aguish intermittent season, the last week of October." On that week the sagacious astrologer, Rider, in his note on the third column of the calendar side, teaches us to expect "variable and cold weather;" but instead of encouraging us to trust ourselves to the haze and mist and doubtful lights of that changeable week, on the answerable part of the opposite page, he gives us a salutary caution (indeed it is very nearly in the words of the author's motto): "Avoid (says he) being out late at night, and in "foggy weather, for a cold now caught may last "the whole winter."* This ingenious author, who disdained the prudence of the almanack, walked out in the very fog he complains of, and has led us to a very unseasonable airing at that time. Whilst this noble writer, by the vigour of an excellent constitution, formed for the violent changes he prognosticates, may shake off the importunate rheum and malignant influenza of this disagreeable week, a whole parliament may go on spitting and snivelling, and wheezing and coughing, during a whole session. All this from listening to variable, hebdomadal politicians, who run away from their opinions without giving us a month's warning; and for not listening to the wise and friendly admonitions of Dr. Cardanus Rider, who never apprehends he may change his opinions before his pen is out of his hand, but always enables us to lay in, at least, a year's stock of useful information.

motto, Que faire encore une fois dans une telle | nuit?—Attendre le jour. The very title seemed to me striking and peculiar, and to announce something uncommon. In the time I have lived to, I always seem to walk on enchanted ground. Every thing is new, and, according to the fashionable phrase, revolutionary. In former days authors valued themselves upon the maturity and fulness of their deliberations. Accordingly they predicted (perhaps with more arrogance than reason) an eternal duration to their works. The quite contrary is our present fashion. Writers value themselves now on the instability of their opinions and the transitory life of their productions. On this kind of credit the modern institutors open their schools. They write for youth, and it is sufficient if the instruction" lasts as long as a present love,-or as "the painted silks and cottons of the season.' The doctrines in this work are applied, for their standard, with great exactness to the shortest possible periods both of conception and duration. The title is, "Some Remarks on the Apparent "circumstances of the War in the fourth Week of October 1795." The time is critically chosen. A month or so earlier would have made it the anniversary of a bloody Parisian September, when the French massacre one another. A day or two later would have carried it into a London November, the gloomy month, in which it is said by a pleasant author, that Englishmen hang and drown themselves. In truth, this work has a tendency to alarm us with symptoms of publick suicide. However, there is one comfort to be taken even from the gloomy time of year. It is a rotting season. If what is brought to market is not good, it is not likely to keep long. Even buildings run up in haste with untempered mortar At first I took comfort. I said to myself, that in that humid weather, if they are ill-contrived if I should, as I fear I must, oppose the doctrines tenements, do not threaten long to incumber the of the last week of October, it is probable, that, by earth. The author tells us (and I believe he is this time, they are no longer those of the eminent the very first author that ever told such a thing to writer to whom they are attributed. He gives us his readers)" that the entire fabrick of his specu- hopes, that long before this he may have em"lations might be overset by unforeseen vicissi- braced the direct contrary sentiments. If I am "tudes;" and what is far more extraordinary, found in a conflict with those of the last week of "that even the whole consideration might be October, I may be in full agreement with those of "varied whilst he was writing those pages." the last week in December, or the first week in Truly, in my poor judgment, this circumstance January 1796. But a second edition, and a formed a very substantial motive for his not pub- French translation, (for the benefit, I must suplishing those ill-considered considerations at all. pose, of the new regicide directory,) have let down He ought to have followed the good advice of his a little of these flattering hopes. We and the dimotto; Que faire encore dans une telle nuit ?-At-rectory know that the author, whatever changes tendre le jour. He ought to have waited till he had got a little more daylight on this subject. Night itself is hardly darker than the fogs of that time.

Finding the last week in October so particularly referred to, and not perceiving any particular event relative to the war, which happened on any of the days in that week, I thought it possible that they were marked by some astrological superstition, to which the greatest politicians have been

• Here I have fallen into an unintentional mistake. Rider's Almanack for 1794 lay before me; and, in truth. I then had no other. For variety that sage astrologer has made some small

his works seemed made to indicate, like a wea-
ther-cock grown rusty, remains just where he was
in the last week of last October. It is true, that
his protest against binding him to his opinions,
and his reservation of a right to whatever opi-
nions he pleases, remain in their full force. This
variability is pleasant, and shews a fertility of
fancy;

Qualis in æthereo felix Vertumnus Olympo
Mille habet ornatus, mille decenter habet.

changes on the weather side of 1795; but the caution is the same on the opposite page of instruction.

The great general pervading purpose of the whole pamphlet is to reconcile us to peace with the present usurpation in France. In this general drift of the author I can hardly be mistaken. The other purposes, less general, and subservient to the preceding scheme, are to shew, first, that the time of the Remarks was the favourable time for making that peace upon our side; secondly, that on the enemy's side their disposition towards the acceptance of such terms, as he is pleased to offer, was rationally to be expected; the third purpose was to make some sort of disclosure of the terms, which, if the regicides are pleased to grant them, this nation ought to be contented to accept: these form the basis of the negociation, which the author, whoever he is, proposes to open.

Yet, doing all justice to the sportive variability | " detached paragraphs." That caution was not of these weekly, daily, or hourly speculators, shall absolutely necessary. I should think it unfair to I be pardoned, if I attempt a word on the part of the author and to myself, to have proceeded otherus simple country folk? It is not good for us, how-wise. This author's whole, however, like every ever it may be so for great statesmen, that we other whole, can not be so well comprehended should be treated with variable politicks. I con- without some reference to the parts; but they shall sider different relations as prescribing a different be again referred to the whole. Without this latter conduct. I allow, that, in transactions with an attention, several of the passages would certainly enemy, a minister may, and often must, vary his remain covered with an impenetrable and truly demands with the day, possibly with the hour. oracular obscurity. With an enemy, a fixed plan, variable arrangements. This is the rule the nature of the transaction prescribes. But all this belongs to treaty. All these shiftings and changes are a sort of secret amongst the parties, till a definite settlement is brought about. Such is the spirit of the proceedings in the doubtful and transitory state of things between enmity and friendship. In this change the subjects of the transformation are by nature carefully wrapt up in their cocoons. The gay ornament of summer is not seemly in his aurelia state. This mutability is allowed to a foreign negociator; but when a great politician condescends publickly to instruct his own countrymen on a matter, which may fix their fate for ever, his opinions ought not to be diurnal, or even weekly. These ephemerides of politicks are not made for our slow and coarse understandings. Our appetite demands a piece of resistance. We require some food, that will stick to the ribs. We call for sentiments, to which we can attach ourselves; sentiments, in which we can take an interest; sentiments, on which we can warm, on which we can ground some confidence in ourselves or in others. We do not want a largess of inconstancy. Poor souls, we have enough of that sort of poverty at home. There is a difference too between deliberation and doctrine: a man ought to be decided in his opinions before he attempts to teach. His fugitive lights may serve himself in some unknown region, but they cannot free us from the effects of the errour, into which we have been betrayed. His active Will-o'-the-Wisp may be gone nobody can guess where, whilst he leaves us be-rified, and almost overpowered Europe. "France," mired and benighted in the bog.

Having premised these few reflections upon this new mode of teaching a lesson, which whilst the scholar is getting by heart the master forgets, I come to the lesson itself. On the fullest consideration of it, I am utterly incapable of saying with any great certainty what it is, in the detail, that the author means to affirm or deny, to dissuade or recommend. His march is mostly oblique, and his doctrine rather in the way of insinuation than of dogmatick assertion. It is not only fugitive in its duration, but is slippery in the extreme, whilst it lasts. Examining it part by part, it seems almost every where to contradict itself; and the author, who claims the privilege of varying his opinions, has exercised this privilege in every section of his remarks. For this reason, amongst others, I follow the advice, which the able writer gives in his last page, which is "to consider the impression of what "he has urged, taken from the whole, and not from

Before I consider these Remarks along with the other reasonings, which I hear on the same subject, I beg leave to recall to your mind the observation I made early in our correspondence, and which ought to attend us quite through the discussion of this proposed peace, amity, or fraternity, or whatever you may call it; that is, the real quality and character of the party you have to deal with. This, I find, as a thing of no importance, has every where escaped the author of the October Remarks. That hostile power, to the period of the fourth week in that month, has been ever called and considered as an usurpation. In that week, for the first time, it changed its name of an usurped power, and took the simple name of France. The word France is slipped in just as if the government stood exactly as before that revolution, which has astonished, ter

says the author, " will do this ;""it is the interest "of France;" "the returning honour and gene"rosity of France," &c. &c. always merely France; just as if we were in a common political war with an old recognized member of the commonwealth of Christian Europe; and as if our dispute had turned upon a mere matter of territorial or commercial controversy, which a peace might settle by the imposition or the taking off a duty, with the gain or the loss of a remote island, or a frontier town or two, on the one side or the other. This shifting of persons could not be done without the hocus-pocus of abstraction. We have been in a grievous errour; we thought, that we had been at war with rebels against the lawful government, but that we were friends and allies of what is properly France; friends and allies to the legal body politick of France. But by slight of hand the jacobins are clean vanished, and it is France we have got under our cup. Blessings on his soul, that first invented